Why do Westerners train in exotic unrealistic weapons and ignore practical ones like baseball bats?

[Flying Crane]

When I wake up in the morning and find to my utter dismay that in addition to the seventeen zombies milling about in my front yard, Ive got twelve more in the street and nine who found their way into my back yard, I know I’ve got thirty-eight zombies and I’m in for some blade work this day. Now I can subtract the five that fell into the swimming pool, as they can be dispatched another time, at my leisure. This leaves me with a total of thirty-three that absolutely need to be dealt with before I head out on my daily scavenging mission.

If I wake up my wife and alert her to the situation, I can now divide the number of zombies by two, leaving sixteen for each of us, with one left over. That is sixteen and one-half zombies each. We can double-team on that last one. Or, the thought occurs to me that we could hand off the spare long sword to our son, age six, and let him have a go at the last zombie, who happens to be the mean neighbor who yelled at our son last year for trampling the flowers in front of his house. This would be an opportune moment for our son to begin learning to take down Zed on his own, a skill that will serve him well for years to come. Payback, baby.

If I estimate that a fresh Zed might burn thirty calories to take down and dispose of, I can multiply sixteen zombies by thirty calories and know that I need 480 calories. That pitiful bowl of oatmeal that I had is not gonna get me very far. I’ve got hungry work ahead of me.

What I also know is that I need to fix the yard fence, ‘cause how in the hell did those zombies get into the back yard and the pool in the first place??

So people, practice your blades and brush up on your mathematics. How embarrassing would it be if I took out ten zombies and left twenty-three for my wife, just because I couldn’t do quick division in my head!!!???

 

[Tez3]

From observing the council workers around here, the answer would be about 16 months.

And once he's filled it back in, someone from a different department would come and dig it up again to do something else.

As short a time as that wow! My son lives in Bedale a small town up here, the roads are always up for something, you'd think they'd co-ordinate their roads works.

 

[Buka]

When I wake up in the morning and find to my utter dismay that in addition to the seventeen zombies milling about in my front yard, Ive got twelve more in the street and nine who found their way into my back yard, I know I’ve got thirty-eight zombies and I’m in for some blade work this day. Now I can subtract the five that fell into the swimming pool, as they can be dispatched another time, at my leisure. This leaves me with a total of thirty-three that absolutely need to be dealt with before I head out on my daily scavenging mission.

If I wake up my wife and alert her to the situation, I can now divide the number of zombies by two, leaving sixteen for each of us, with one left over. That is sixteen and one-half zombies each. We can double-team on that last one. Or, the thought occurs to me that we could hand off the spare long sword to our son, age six, and let him have a go at the last zombie, who happens to be the mean neighbor who yelled at our son last year for trampling the flowers in front of his house. This would be an opportune moment for our son to begin learning to take down Zed on his own, a skill that will serve him well for years to come. Payback, baby.

If I estimate that a fresh Zed might burn thirty calories to take down and dispose of, I can multiply sixteen zombies by thirty calories and know that I need 480 calories. That pitiful bowl of oatmeal that I had is not gonna get me very far. I’ve got hungry work ahead of me.

What I also know is that I need to fix the yard fence, ‘cause how in the hell did those zombies get into the back yard and the pool in the first place??

So people, practice your blades and brush up on your mathematics. How embarrassing would it be if I took out ten zombies and left twenty-three for my wife, just because I couldn’t do quick division in my head!!!???

 

[Flying Crane]

View attachment 22666

Yeah. The POOL, damnit!!!

 

[_Simon_]

Haven't read the whole thread, so this may have been said already or this may be an entirely different discussion by now...

Essentially, we really nutted out the best ways to attack and defend against ALL types of zombies, making sure to delineate the different attributes, strengths and weaknesses of zombie types.

I HIGHLY recommend the zombie posts, could save your life!

 

[_Simon_]

We call it maths because the whole word is mathematics not mathematic. I also forgot, my OH reminded me, that there's also trigonometry which obviously I didn't do either lol.

I think that may be one reason we call it mathS and they call it just math.

We pluralise it for a reason.

I think generally most folks include all of that in "math". The one difference is that we don't much distinguish (in lay discussion) between "arithmetic" and "math". In fact, you won't find most Americans using the word "arithmetic" - it's just the first stage of "math".

Kids of this generation! Choose "math" over "meth"!


(Or is that meths..... )

 

[_Simon_]

When I wake up in the morning and find to my utter dismay that in addition to the seventeen zombies milling about in my front yard, Ive got twelve more in the street and nine who found their way into my back yard, I know I’ve got thirty-eight zombies and I’m in for some blade work this day. Now I can subtract the five that fell into the swimming pool, as they can be dispatched another time, at my leisure. This leaves me with a total of thirty-three that absolutely need to be dealt with before I head out on my daily scavenging mission.

If I wake up my wife and alert her to the situation, I can now divide the number of zombies by two, leaving sixteen for each of us, with one left over. That is sixteen and one-half zombies each. We can double-team on that last one. Or, the thought occurs to me that we could hand off the spare long sword to our son, age six, and let him have a go at the last zombie, who happens to be the mean neighbor who yelled at our son last year for trampling the flowers in front of his house. This would be an opportune moment for our son to begin learning to take down Zed on his own, a skill that will serve him well for years to come. Payback, baby.

If I estimate that a fresh Zed might burn thirty calories to take down and dispose of, I can multiply sixteen zombies by thirty calories and know that I need 480 calories. That pitiful bowl of oatmeal that I had is not gonna get me very far. I’ve got hungry work ahead of me.

What I also know is that I need to fix the yard fence, ‘cause how in the hell did those zombies get into the back yard and the pool in the first place??

So people, practice your blades and brush up on your mathematics. How embarrassing would it be if I took out ten zombies and left twenty-three for my wife, just because I couldn’t do quick division in my head!!!???

.... absolutely post of the year, hands down.. and it's not even February yet!!!!! Pissing myself laughing....

And wow, we now have the bunkai! The practical application of mathematics!!!

 

[pdg]

Kids of this generation! Choose "math" over "meth"!


(Or is that meths..... )

Meth is generally an abbreviation for methamphetamine.

Meths is an abbreviation for methylated spirits.

Neither are substances I would recommend as particularly healthy to consume for recreational purposes (although both are).

 

[Dirty Dog]

Meth is generally an abbreviation for methamphetamine.

Meths is an abbreviation for methylated spirits.

Neither are substances I would recommend as particularly healthy to consume for recreational purposes (although both are).

Meth is bad. Except when it's good. Because meth injection is either a good way to destroy your health, or a good way to allow higher levels of boost in turbo/supercharged engines.

 

[pdg]

Meth is bad. Except when it's good. Because meth injection is either a good way to destroy your health, or a good way to allow higher levels of boost in turbo/supercharged engines.

For use in an engine, would that not be methanol?

We don't bother abbreviating that word, because it's only 3 syllables

 

[Dirty Dog]

For use in an engine, would that not be methanol?

We don't bother abbreviating that word, because it's only 3 syllables

It is, but it's generally referred to as meth in the car world. Just as a transmission is usually called a tranny - another word with drastically varying meanings.

 

[pdg]

It is, but it's generally referred to as meth in the car world. Just as a transmission is usually called a tranny - another word with drastically varying meanings.

Indeed.

Here (historically) a tranny (/trannie) was an abbreviation for "transistor radio" - loads of people used to walk around with a tranny in their hand...

Alternatively it referred to a Ford Transit van - for a time after that it was used as a generic term for any small/medium panel van irrespective of manufacture (You wanna shift a sofa? My mate Trev's got a tranny, I'll give 'im an 'oller on the blower - 'ere, Dave, Trev ain't got shot of 'is tranny 'as 'e?)

A car transmission refers to the entire drivetrain, the gearbox section just being a gearbox.

To make a gearbox (or 'box, as in autobox or slushbox if referring to an automatic) into a transmission you need to add a clutch or torque converter, prop (if rwd), diff, halfshafts...

And methanol is methanol - from my time working within the car and bike world (seems that the definition is somewhat like the "world series"...) - this may have changed in some circles over here with the incessant importation of foreign terms, but generally it's still methanol (or meth'nol/meffnol if the accent supports such).

 

[Azulx]

I'm watching High School of the Dead and I just watched Train to Busan. In both zombie apocalypse work, the more preferred weapon by the heroes is the baseball bat and most bystanders are using broomsticks, wrenches, crowbars, and one handed heavy clubs and sticks and other boring weapons. The few people who choose to use fancy martial arts stuff like Sai and Kama either get eaten quickly or are shown to be at an extremely high level of skill that a regular Joe can't expect to attain in years or even decades.

It leads me to ask why so many Westerners tend to search out specifically to train in weapons that are impossible to find in daily life and are often illegel or even impractical to carry around. Most commonly is wooden Japanese sword styles, nunchuks, Tonfas, and too many weapons I cannot name that are simply to bizarre to describe or to obscure even in Asia. Rather than learning the use of weapons that you can easily find an improvised tool to translate into impromptu such as flailing weapons (easily created with so many home tools, even simply putting a lockpad in a sock) and shield arts (you can simply pick up a metal trash can lid). Or even common weapons such as a bat.

I bring this up because in East Asia, the most common weapon to use is not a Tai Chi sword or Katar and these other fancy stuff but simply the baseball bat. Used in the most amount of non-passionate (angry housewife who caught you cheating) and non-criminal killings (esp in self defense) and the most common tool local gangs and thugs use for violence. That nowadays not only do most TKD and Karate RBSD-specific classes in Korea and Japan not only emphasize defense against bats but bats is actually far more common to teach for use as a weapon than any other traditional martial arts tool excepting for the nunchuks, bo staff, one handed clubs and stick, and knife arts. For the average non-committed weekend warrior, more time is spent on teaching bats than even those other practical weapons. In addition with how baseball has been dominating those countries in modern times, old heavy bat martial arts such as Kanabo styles have been in revival in dojos and school instructions. As baseball rises in popularity in China, there too is a revival of obscure and mostly forgotten styles using long heavy clubs.

But in the West there is s much emphasize on the fancy of bizarre weapons. Even stuff barely used back at home in Asia (such as some weird local Filipino fighting using a bullship). Excepting nunchuks (which can easily transitioned into improvised stuff like tying two sticks together and lockpad in socks), bo staff (broom sticks), and one handed clubs and sticks (obviously easiest to transition to as almost everything from tire irons to mallets can be used), all the practical self defense weapons style that can easily transition to civilian lifestyle are so damn ignored.

Why is this? In Asia as I mentioned the bat gets far more emphasized esp in civilian self defense and criminal activities than kendo styles and even advanced martial artists (esp since many top athletes also practise martial arts and are baseball fans in their spare time) prefer two handed bats even over staffs, knives, and other practical small arms. In China most commoners with some kung fu training tend to use kitchen knives esp heavy meat cutting blades for self defense over those strange swords More common than even stick and staff arts in Korea is the preferred use of fist based weapons like brass knuckles and training in forms of boxing that emphasize defenses against bats, etc under the use of brass knuckles and other older similar fist weapons in Korean history.

Why isn't the baseball bat a popular weapon to train in the West? I can barely find any school teaching about bats and those that do focus far more on defending against bats than using it. Same with other lots of practical tools. We don't have styles teaching how to use a crowbar to hook enemy weapons as common in the West. While the crowbar is quite popular among Chinese gangs and the Chinese police use a variation of it because of its ability to hook away and disarm weapons! Hooking weapons have seen a revival in Chinese kung fu lately. Yet this practical weapon type is ignored in the West's school just like baseball bats are.

What makes impractical weapons so popular in demand by Western students while day-to-day life tools like hitting with a hunting rifle, disarming with crowbars, and esp baseball bats not in demand for lessons?

Where can you watch high school of the dead? Haven't seen that since freshman year lol